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great eating-by great here is signified not quantity so much as quality. Apropos of birds, the other day, at a large dinner, being called upon for a toast, I gave, as the best toast I knew, 'Woodcock toast,' which was drunk with 3 cheers.

"Yours affectionately,

"C. LAMB."

What a strange mingling of humour and solemn truth is there in the following reflection on Fauntleroy's fate, in a letter (with its grotesque sketches) addressed to Bernard Barton? The gentleman at Canton was not Manning, but Ball.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"Dec. 1st, 1824.

"Dear B. B.,-If Mr. Mitford will send me a full and circumstantial description of his desired vases, I will transmit the same to a gentleman resident at Canton, whom I think I have interest enough in to take the proper care for their execution. But Mr. M. must have patience. China is a great way off, further perhaps than he thinks; and his next year's roses must be content to wither in a Wedgwood pot. He will please to say whether he should like his Arms upon them, &c.' I send herewith some patterns which suggest themselves to me at the first blush of the subject; but he will probably consult his own taste after all.

ypy

1 [The Chinese undertook to execute commissions for china services, and also paint the heraldic bearings on each piece, if desired. The latter operation was not usually very artistic from an European point of view.]

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"The last pattern is obviously fitted for ranunculuses only. The two former may indifferently hold daisies, marjoram,_sweet williams, and that sort. My friend in Canton is Inspector of Teas, his name is Ball; and I can think of no better tunnel. I shall expect Mr. M.'s decision. "Taylor and Hessey finding their magazine goes off very heavily at 2s. 6d. are prudently going to raise their price another shilling; and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the number of them. If they set up against the 'New Monthly,' they must change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a Review to a half-dead Magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance.

"And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual, with the change of theme. Who, that standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a banker—at least the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If in an unguarded hour- but I will hope better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presby

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1 [The magazine had been enlarged since March, 1823.]

[Yet Lamb probably had no suspicion that in one of his literary associates, and a man whom he was fond of calling" the light-hearted Janus," lurked one of the darkest villains of modern times, the poisoner Wainewright. See my little volume, 1880, "Introduction."]

terian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my presumption, am too ready to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think of these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, &c. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but should tremble.

"C. L."

In the year 1824, one of Lamb's last ties to the theatre, as a scene of present enjoyment, was severed. Munden, the rich peculiarities of whose acting he has embalmed in one of his Elian papers, quitted the stage in the mellowness of his powers. His relish for Munden's acting was almost a new sense; he did not compare him with the old comedians, as having common qualities with them, but regarded him as altogether of a different and original style. On the last night of his appearance, Lamb was very desirous to attend, but every place in the boxes had long been secured; and Lamb was not strong enough to stand the tremendous rush, by enduring which he could alone hope to obtain a place in the pit; when Munden's gratitude for his exquisite praise anticipated his wish, by providing for him and Miss Lamb places in a corner of the orchestra, close to the stage. The play of the "Poor Gentleman," in which Munden played "Sir Robert Bramble," had concluded, and the audience were impatiently waiting for the farce, in which the great comedian was to delight them for the last time, when my attention was suddenly called to Lamb by Miss Kelly, who sat with my party far withdrawn into the obscurity of one of the upper boxes, but overlooking the radiant hollow which waved below us. In his hand, directly beneath the line of stage-lights, glistened a huge porter-pot, which he was draining; while the broad

face of old Munden was seen thrust out from the door by which the musicians enter, watching the close of the draught, when he might receive and hide the portentous beaker from the gaze of the admiring neighbours. Some unknown benefactor had sent four pots of stout to keep up the veteran's heart during his last trial; and, not able to drink them all, he bethought him of Lamb, and without considering the wonder which would be excited in the brilliant crowd who surrounded him, conveyed himself the cordial chalice to Lamb's parched lips. At the end of the same farce, Munden found himself unable to deliver from memory a short and elegant address which one of his sons had written for him; but, provided against accidents, he took it from his pocket, wiped his eyes, put on his spectacles, read it, and made his last bow. This was, perhaps, the latest occasion on which Lamb took a hearty interest in the present business scene; for though he went now and then to the theatre to gratify Miss Isola, or to please an author who was his friend, his real stage henceforth only spread itself out in the selectest chambers of his memory.

CHAPTER VIII.

EMANCIPATION FROM THE INDIA HOUSE-LETTERS TO BARTON,
NOVELLO, ALLSOP, MISS HUTCHINSON, THE
HAZLITT'S" SPIRIT OF THE AGE.

[1825.]

WORDSWORTHS

THE year 1825 is marked by one of the principal events

in Lamb's uneventful life—his retirement from the drudgery of the desk, with a pension equal to two-thirds of his now liberal salary. The following letters vividly exhibit his hopes and his apprehensions before he received this noble boon from the East India Company, and his bewilderment of pleasure when he found himself in reality free. He has recorded his feelings in one of the most beautiful of his "Last Essays of Elia,” entitled “The Super-· annuated Man;" but it will be interesting to contemplate them, "living as they rose," in the unstudied letters to which this chapter is mainly devoted.

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A New Series of the " London Magazine' commenced with this year; but the spirit of the work had evaporated, as often happens to periodical works, as the store of rich fancies with which its contributors had begun, was in a measure exhausted. Lamb contributed a Memoir of Liston," who occasionally enlivened Lamb's evening parties with his society; and who, besides the interest which he derived from his theatrical fame, was recommended to Lamb by the cordial admiration he expressed for Munden, whom he used to imitate in a style delightfully blending his own humour with that of his sometime rival. The "Memoir " is altogether a fiction.'

Among the very few letters from Coleridge to Lamb, which are extant, is one of the present year, or possibly of 1826, in which Lamb is charged by his correspondent with

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